Trade Issues Trouble Leading Dems

The Nation: Obama's Policies are Tentative, While Clinton Appears Much Less Cautious

(The Nation)  This column was written by John Nichols.

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Barack Obama may have introduced America to the audacity of hope. But in the Democratic primary debate on the pivotal issue of trade policy, it is the audacity of Hillary Clinton that is remarkable. Obama has been troublingly tentative when it comes to articulating the smart progressive response to the challenges of globalization that the voters in the nation's industrial heartland await.

Clinton has shown no such caution. As she did before Ohio's March 4 primary, where blue-collar votes renewed her candidacy, the New York senator is campaigning in the next big-primary states as a fierce critic of failed trade deals. Incredibly, for a woman who has been caught inflating her populist credentials more than once this year, Clinton is moving way beyond the vague rhetoric about renegotiating the North American Free Trade Agreement that became a centerpiece of her Ohio campaigning. Borrowing pages from Ralph Nader, she's telling Pennsylvania and Indiana voters that America's national security is threatened by trade and investment policies that make the stability of the US economy "dependent upon decisions made in other countries' capitals."

Clinton warns that the US trade deficit with China -- which rose last year to a record $252 billion -- has given Beijing too much financial leverage over us. And she's linking her "slow erosion of our own economic sovereignty" theme with a claim that she has opposed the free-trade regime since 1992 -- implicitly suggesting that workers who have been let down by other Democrats can count on her to battle Wall Street on behalf of Main Street.

Clinton's latest line rewrites her history. Shortly before her campaign began airing NAFTA-bashing television ads in Pennsylvania, the National Archives released 11,046 pages of previously classified documents of her tenure as First Lady. The smoking gun buried within contradicts Clinton's claim that "I have been a critic of NAFTA from the very beginning." The papers confirm that Clinton worked against labor, farm and environmental groups in 1993 to pass NAFTA -- and in so doing initiated a new era in trade relations that would see the United States help form the World Trade Organization, pressure Africa and Latin America to open themselves to new forms of economic colonialism and remove restrictions on trade with China. Clinton participated in strategy sessions and headlined a closed-door rally that prepared 120 women business leaders to lobby Congress. Clinton aides claim she was secretly pushing back against the free-trade orthodoxy of her husband's administration, but those who heard her at the rally say that's "ludicrous."

"There was no question that everyone who spoke, including the First Lady, was for NAFTA," says Laura Jones, executive director of the US Association of Importers of Textiles and Apparel. This is not the only inconvenient trade truth for Clinton. After she capitalized in Ohio on reports that an Obama aide told Canadians not to take seriously the Illinois senator's criticisms of NAFTA, Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper's chief of staff was quoted in Canadian media saying that Canadians got similar assurances from the Clinton camp.

After so many stumbles, why is Clinton opening a discussion about the trade deficit with China, which ballooned after her husband's administration "ormalized" trade relations with that country in 2000 -- a move Hillary Clinton openly supported, despite warnings that it would speed the exodus of US jobs and undermine the ability of Washington to pressure Beijing on human rights? It's a sly calculation. To win delegates from states like Pennsylvania and Indiana -- which according to the Economic Policy Institute have lost, respectively, 78,200 and 45,200 jobs because of the US-China trade imbalance -- Clinton must establish herself as a credible critic of free trade. And she is betting that reporters who rarely cover trade issues seriously won't press her on her past positions.

For the most part, Obama has let her get away with it. The Obama camp has criticized Clinton a bit for gaming the trade debate, but its critique has been unfocused. And it has not connected with blocs of white working-class voters in an arc of states worried about trade -- Pennsylvania, Indiana, West Virginia and Kentucky -- that hold primaries in April and May. In fairness, Obama has been preoccupied with discussions of race forced to the forefront by media absorption with his former pastor's sermons. But there is, as well, a sense that his caution may have something to do with his ambivalence about siding too closely with labor, farm, environmental and human rights groups in the trade debate.

Like Clinton, Obama backed the recent Peru Free Trade Agreement, and his "movement" on globalization issues has seemed to be influenced more by presidential ambition than the commitment to workers here and abroad that motivates fair-trade crusaders like Ohio Senator Sherrod Brown and Maine Congressman Mike Michaud -- neither of whom has endorsed anyone in the presidential race. Skepticism about both Obama and Clinton has so far prevented two key unions, the United Auto Workers and the United Steelworkers, from providing either Democratic contender with an endorsement that could influence industrial-state primaries.

The trade debate is a challenge for Obama. For all Clinton's talk, her record of past support for free trade with China makes her vulnerable in Pennsylvania and Indiana. But to exploit that vulnerability, Obama must be more than a critic of Clinton or even NAFTA. Obama must inspire confidence that he "gets" Sherrod Brown's point that the problem is not NAFTA; it's "the NAFTA model" for trade pacts -- a point Brown and Michaud plan to make this month with timely legislation that challenges US support of "race to the bottom" trade policies that encourage corporations to move jobs in search of ever lower standards for protecting workers, consumers and the environment.

"It's not just NAFTA. The entire trade regime doesn't work," says Steelworkers president Leo Gerard. "We're waiting to hear more details from the remaining Democratic candidates on what they're going to do about China, revitalizing American manufacturing and their trade positions before we do any final endorsement." While Obama practices caution and the unions wait, Clinton is mounting an opportunistic campaign that plays off displaced workers' desperation for a champion -- even one whose credibility is undermined by her record.

[noloyalisti]

This article presents a fundamental problem with ALL elected candidates. They are all beholden to big corporate money that runs the government and their policies. Just look at all the actions of the government, they are for, by and of the rich. Our criminal justice system is the justice system for the rich and the criminal system for the poor.

Our Constitution and Bill of Right is long gone. I hate to use the F word (fascism) but we have to face the music.

[davidlar2]

Why is it progressive to be opposed to trade? How far should we go in not trading with others? Are we better off if as individuals we don''t trade and all live as subsistance farmers? Or is the best possible case that we only trade with US passport holders? I don''t know how to make shoes so I need to trade for them. Somehow buying made in USA $200 shoes is better for America than buying $20 made in China shoes because the money stays in America the argument goes. Of course it is worse for the individual who made the purchase because he/she has $180 less. But someone else has a job that they otherwise wouldn''t have (although a lot of the $180 is lost to inefficiency through reduced competition rather than pure value to the economy). But on the other side, unemployment is low, so employment doesn''t appear to be a problem. And if we don''t trade with others, they won''t trade with us, so those are jobs lost. But shoe makers can''t write computer programs, so we need to create jobs that people can do rather than jobs that the economy needs the progressive argument goes. But in the end, is the economy guaranteed to have the same total value (zero sum game) if we don''t trade or do, if we make shoes or high technology, .... It seems to me the progressive position on trade is sacrificing the future of the country for a few unskilled labor union members.... How progressive is that?

[wolfi101]

noloyalisti, actually by that take, Obama is beholden the least. The majority of his contributions are from small donors.

[mcvet]

It seems to me the progressive position on trade is sacrificing the future of the country for a few unskilled labor union members.... How progressive is that?


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Posted by davidlar2 at 01:59 PM : Apr 04, 2008
+ report abuse

When OUR negotiators went to the table and negotiated agreements that resulted in American Workers having to compete with $3.00 a DAY wages they stuck a knife right in the back of hard working American''s. Those agreements are VERY unfair to those on who''s backs this nation was built and need to be tossed in the trash!! Sieg Heil Bush

[Razzl]

All three of the candidates know that the trade deals are a good thing, not a bad thing, but that in certain states you can''t say that honestly without taking a hit. Obama has the decency to at least be embarassed about having to put on a show of opposition to treaties that are clearly fair and in the country''s interest: Hillary has decided to use the issue to seize advantage, revealing that she considers her candidacy more important than honesty. And when McCain has to actually campaign in places like Ohio will he defend the GOP pro-trade position there? We''ll see...

Obama is taking his calculated stances trying to ride the fence while Clinton gets real. Too many jobs have been given to foreign countries that absolutely should be filled by Americans. It is so irritating to call your internet provider only to get someone who barely speaks English giving complicated instructions on how to fix a problem... Or calling an airline and getting a heavy accent to book flights to an American city. It is frustrating and irritating...these are the kind of jobs that should be filled by Americans...Also, the technical service jobs which are being farmed out to other countries. Period.